a hurt so at home in our chests
by charliespike18
Summary: Again and again, fate decided that they didn't get a happy ending - even if they were supposed to end up together. Mary and Matthew - through time. AU


**_San Jose - 1935_**

They dance; their bodies entwined, hands clasped together, hearts beating as one. Her head is resting on his shoulder, her gaze drifting away - his eyes are fixed on the middle distance, unable to look at her.

To anybody watched, they'd look like strangers, forced together in the late evening twilight, fulfilling a social commitment neither of them care very much about.

But, in truth, this dance is more than that.

It is in the end, and she is dancing with tears in her eyes and his grip is far too tight and when he leans down to talk into her ear, he doesn't say he wants a drink or ask if she wants one - no, he says, only to her, his voice no more than a whisper, goodbye.

Then they part, two lost souls stumbling from the close embrace and they both know things are over and they can never go back.

...

They meet on a Tuesday, deep in the summer, the unforgiving sun beating relentlessly.

She tumbles from the car into baking July heat. He's not supposed to be there. He's standing with a man he doesn't like, a smile plastered on his lips, putting on a show his mother would be proud of. There's a glass of whiskey in his hand and he's leaning on the wooden veranda, sipping every so often, listening to the diatribe of hate spill from a man and he can hardly stop his contempt from boiling over. He should have known this was a bad idea; he's bored and all his host does is _talk_.

But then he sees her, walking purposefully across the dusty ground towards them. There's anger burning in her eyes and he is intrigued. He's not surprised to see that his host is yet to notice their new guest. As she gets closer, their eyes meet. There's a smile tugging at her lips, despite the fury in her eyes; a smile that says, just you wait and see.

So he does.

She climbs the steps to the veranda and calmly picks up a tumbler of whiskey. His host has noticed now and pauses in his rant, his face contorting in a look of surprise and anger. He knows now that he was not expecting this woman to be here. She, however, doesn't care. She holds the tumbler in one hand, looking at in carefully and swirling it, whilst his host splutters for words.

Before he can find them, her arm snaps forwards, and she pours the whiskey over him, her eyes lighting up as she speaks.

"That's what you get, you bastard."

She pauses, watching with glee his startled expression, before adding, calmly.

"Would you like another glass, _darling_?"

That's when Matthew knows he's going to like this woman.

...

He makes a swift exit after the whiskey incident, fleeing back to his home across the meadows. Not because he doesn't want to stick around and see what happens, but because his host was glaring at him and he didn't feel like he had another option.

Later, hours after the evening glow has faded and dark has arrived, he's sitting in his kitchen. He is yet to know where everything is, though there is still time for that. He's only been here four days, after all.

There's knock at the door. He's frowns. He is a stranger to this place - who could it be? He stands, slowly, his limbs tired and protesting.

He doesn't expect to find her at the door. Not at all.

...

She says she wants to explain about what she did.

And so she does.

...

She married young to a man she loved but who didn't give a damn about her, (her words, not his) a man who played with her heart and didn't care about the consequences. The evening's events were not special. She finds out about something he has done, she gets angry, she lashes out, she forgives him. It's a cycle.

Even though he doesn't know her, he knows she hates it.

...

She makes her exit, leaving only a wry smile and a goodbye in her wake.

...

He should have known then. He should have known to leave her alone.

But he doesn't and things begin on a path from which they cannot return.

...

She looks beautiful in the early morning light, her eyes closed, her weary body resting. The anger, the resentment, the guilt fades from her while sleep takes its hours from her. Its moments like this, he wonders why they don't just run away. She could leave her husband - he doesn't care about her anyway - and they could go anywhere.

But then he thinks about the realities, about the stigma that would follow them like an unwelcome guest wherever they might go; the scarlet woman and her lover. And anyway, what is this after all? A fling for the unhappy housewife who will never leave her husband, and he's a fool to believe that this is love.

But right now, he doesn't care. Right now, it's as close to love as he's ever felt.

...

She ends things after a year.

It takes him by surprise, the brutality of the truth. He thought that things would stay the same. To be honest - even though she always left with the rising of the sun, he never cared - at least she was there at all.

But then one day, deep in the summer just like the first time they met, she tells him that she loves her husband and that she cannot continue seeing him.

She goes to leave, but he catches hand and pulls her back.

"Tell me one thing, Mary, before you go."

She looks up at him, the burning, angry eyes that he remembers so well watching for every detail on his face.

"Tell me you love me."

She laughs at him then, and his heart falls. He feels a fool.

But then she fumbles a kiss to his cheeks and murmurs, "Of course I love you."

And then she goes, lost in the night.

...

He has no trouble selling the house. If she doesn't want him anymore, he can't stay around and torture himself with what might have been. He can't tempt her anymore, because she's made her choice clear.

He leaves as the tress begin to change.

...

It's years later. A ballroom. A flash, a flicker - a face he once knew well, but of course, it can't be her. It's been too long.

But, it is.

She sees him too, and without trying, they float together. They stand side by side, talking as if the last few years haven't happened, and she didn't break both their hearts by choosing her husband over him all those years ago.

He asks her to dance, even though he knows it's not a good idea. She says no, initially, but then their gazes meet, and she once again fumbles a kiss to his cheek.

"Go on then," she whispers, "for old time's sake."

...

When it's over, and the two lost souls part, stumbling from the close embrace, he leaves. He wants desperately to retrace his steps into the past, to go back to that moment in the heat of summer and beg her to change her mind.

But it's been too long, he can't turn back and change things now they've happened. He didn't fight for her and now it's over, and too late. He lost her and now he has to pay the price.

...

The night is cold.

...

* * *

 ** _Seattle - 2000_**

If it's a sunny day you can see from station to station.

…

They meet for the first time in the coffee shop. It's cold and just about to snow and they both seem to stumble in from the sidewalk side by side.

It's half way between his work and hers – not that either of them know that – and for days after they seem to always turn up at the same time, early in the morning, bleary eyed and in need of a decent caffeine fix.

They don't talk, not to each other, but without really trying he memorises her order. A few times they share a table because there aren't any more free but they still don't exchange many words. They both notice the tell tale whispers of an British accent though, almost lost behind the years they have both spent in this country, this city. Maybe it's that affinity that draws them together. One day, late in the evening – after his shifts finally over – he goes in alone the girl behind the counter, Anna, asks where his girl is.

He laughs and Anna does too because she just assumed – assumed they knew each other, that they were friends, that they were together. Matthew's surprised, he doesn't even know the girl – doesn't know a thing about her, not a single thing. He laughs again at Anna's assumptions and leaves.

...

In the morning the girl is behind her and Anna gives him a knowing smile when she hands over the coffee. The morning day after that she's not there and it's the first time. He doesn't worry, no, it's not like she knows him.

It's not like he cares.

It turns out that Mary's been called into work early, first time in a month, and as she stands on a street corner looking up at the blaze above her, she wonders what the boy from the coffee shop is doing. Mary wonders if he's in line, alone and waiting.

Not for her, of course not.

The fire's on third and Lex and it takes them six hours to get it under control. That's what she does, She's a fireman after all, she puts out fires. She's been doing it in Seattle for the best part of five years, ever since a incident with a Turkish diplomat meant she had wanted to get as far away from her family and England as she could. She doesn't know Matthew's story - a terrible break up with a beautiful girl sending him running to this country, this place with all its anonymity. She doesn't know that he ran here just like she did, to this place where they never wanted to be found.

When her shift is over, after the reports have been filed and the equipment put away, she goes to the coffee shop following a foolish idea that he might be there.

But he's not.

In the morning, though, as the first streaks of sun in the sky, he is. They stand together, by the door, after they've both picked up their coffee. He opens the it and she follows – Mary looks at him and smiles. She walks off towards her work and he turns and goes off the other way. It's the first thing they really learn about each other - the direction in which they leave.

...

His day's been a bad one – Joseph tells him it'll all be okay but he's not sure he believes him. He hides out in the coffee shop until closing, holding a nearly empty cup and praying that he'll still have a job in the morning.

Mary comes just as they're locking up and manages to persuade Anna to make her a coffee before she shuts up. She doesn't see coffee boy in the corner until she's about to leave and even then she's not too sure what to do. But isn't that why she came, really, to see him?

They stand again on the street but it's raining this time, fat drops that soak them both in seconds. She gives him her umbrella - for some reason she has two - and he thanks her, leaving an unspoken whisper that he'll return it in the morning. He tells her goodbye, see you tomorrow, and they depart in opposite directions.

There isn't a morning though - she's called in to the station at three am - the coffee shop definitely not open. She's tired, lack of sleep does that to you - but the oblivion of it all had eluded her for a least the second night in a row. Mary blinks, taking a deep breath and disappearing in to the frozen night.

...

The blaze is at an apartment building three blocks from the coffee shop. She's the third on site and they send her in – breathing apparatus and all – with instructions that while most people have evacuated, they still believe there to be others inside.

The fire is at the top, burning furious and taking down everything in its way, floor by floor, life by life.

She starts at the bottom while two other officers go to the blaze directly, trying to get to those in immediate danger. She doesn't find anyone on the first few floors, no child needing saving or pet left behind but when she gets to the sixth floor she can hear the coughing, the banging – metal on metal.

She finds him a heartbeat later. The moment after that she's not sure her heart beats at all. He's in the lift, she can tell now –and there's no way out. Mary calls to him, hoping the man is still conscious, still breathing. Even though the flames aren't upon them the smoke is and its choking.

"Hello?" she shouts but it's muffled by the machine keeping her alive. "Hey, are you okay?"

She thinks she hears a laugh, and prays that it is, because that means the man in the lift is still alive.

"Oh, they sent you to save me?" The voice, disconnected from a face – from a person - says in-between coughing and laughing and dying. Mary recognises the voice in a moment and just stares at the tiny amount of light refracting out of the lift.

It's _him._ Coffee boy is trapped in the burning building and there's nothing she can do.

Mary knows about fires and predicts that the flames won't reach them for a while - she's already received the all clear from the radio, telling her that the man in the lift is the only one left, the only one who can't get out.

She sits, leaning back on the wall and they talk. Neither of them say the obvious – that he's not going to get out of here any other way than in a body bag- but they talk of other things. He learns her name – _Mary –_ and she learns his – _Matthew._ They talk of inane things like movies and holidays and anything that they can think of. He mentions, as if it's the most normal thing in the world, that she's not going to get the umbrella back. She doesn't laugh.

She just starts to cry.

But she still asks question after question until he stops answering and then Mary just sits there 'till the call comes for her to get out. They're not just going to let her sit there and die because she couldn't get him out.

…

She goes to his funeral a week later, sitting in a row of mourners for a man she didn't really know but did. She gets introduced to his mother and Isobel - that's her name – thanks her, shaking her hand and crying silent tears.

She knows now what he did – where he was going when she disappeared from the coffee shop in the other direction – he was a fireman too. Seattle is a big city and their stations were on a long street, the coffee shop in the middle.

She goes back there, a few days after the fire and Anna asks her – in quite the way she asked Matthew but Mary doesn't know that – where her guy is. She just shakes her head.

Two days later she receives a packet in the mail. When she opens it her umbrella falls out. There's a note, written by Matthew's mother - it tells her that while he was trapped in his metallic coffin he texted her mother. He told her to give the umbrella to the fireman who tried to save him.

Mary stares at the word _tried_ for almost an hour. Because she couldn't save him, she couldn't do anything.

...

She sits in his office and looks out the window.

If it's a sunny day you can see from station to station

You can see from _her_ to _him_.

* * *

 ** _London - 1893_**

She is born in the dark of night, to a murmuring household, alive but only under the surface; above board, everyone is reserved, everyone is quiet.

She breaks the silence, wailing for her mother, for her father - but she gets neither.

She doesn't know this of course, cannot remember being so young, and of course they will never tell her.

...

She grows up in the silent house, full of blank faces and hidden feelings - trapped by the confines of her home. The gates feel like the bars of a cage, but of course, because she is well-off, because her family have money and influence and power, they never ask her how it feels to live in a palace that feels like a prison.

...

Her mother and father are like ghosts in her life. Instead, she is raised by a constantly changing roster of staff, with their similar faces and bland personalities. She swears that even after nearly twenty years of changing faces and impersonal greetings, she doesn't really know another person.

...

She wonders how it's possible to have no privacy and yet feel so alone.

..

She's eighteen when she meets him.

He's the son of a duke, coming for visit.

Her servant - Anna, her only friend - makes sure she's dressed for the occasion. She pulls the corset tight and Mary sucks in a breath, feeling like she's suffocating. She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and the facade rises.

She will be the pretty little girl she needs to be, but she will feel hollow inside as she does.

...

He's surprisingly nice.

Calm, kind, gentle. His face is not blank or impersonal - he takes her hand and she feels real warmth, of a type she's never felt before.

...

He leaves too soon.

She finds herself missing him.

...

He returns a few months later.

They walk in the gardens together.

She gets to realise she's not the only one who has a front.

...

There are whispers in the rain and letters that crisscross continents.

There are promises and understandings that pass between two similar souls.

There are smiles and laughs and breaks through the cracks of the masks they wear like second skins.

...

She asks her mother if she could marry him.

For the first time in her life there are raised voices in the quiet house she calls home.

...

Then, there are hushed comments every time she enters a room, and knowing glances.

There is a smashed glass on her mother's part when his name is so much as mentioned.

There are brittle smiles and false comments and a parade of _much more suitable_ men.

...

Her mother purrs that this man, with his crisp suit and arrogant smile, would be perfect.

She smiles in return, but it doesn't reach her eyes.

...

Soon, there's a ring on her finger and a departure from the silent home of youth and into the silent home of her adulthood.

Her husband is away most of the year.

She is left alone, but not alone, just like in the past.

How could someone so surrounded by people feel so isolated?

...

He once told her, so long ago now, that they weren't really people - they did not have opinions or feelings that mattered; they were pawns in a game that was much bigger than just them.

She knows now, that he knew the truth much better than her.

...

A baby girl.

A light, flickering and shining, on her horizon.

Hope, for something more.

...

This is something they let her do, something she is allowed to do.

She loves her daughter - she knows, but the love hits her like a corkscrew to the heart. She's never felt anything like it before.

...

(except, of course - _him_ )

...

She promises herself that her daughter will never be alone. That she will know she's loved.

She's unsure, however, if she knows how to make that a reality.

..

A flash, across the room. Her dress, once again, feels like a vice. A feeling of a face, once known like the back of her hand, but with the years it has faded from her memory.

It's only at the end of the party, when everyone is leaving, that she realises that whilst her memory has lost him, her heart cannot.

She watches him leave, from afar, a wry smile playing with her lips.

...

She never sees him again.

* * *

 **Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire** \- **1957**

The lights are blazing on the stage and the applause is ringing in her ears. There are hundreds of people packed in to the small theatre and they're all clapping for her. For her.

For the first time in a long time, Mary Crawley feels alive.

That's how it started, wasn't it - standing on that stage, feeling alive for the first time in years.

The curtains fall to a close as she bows once again. Beside her someone laughs and she guesses it's Anna.

She turns before anyone can speak and is off stage in a moment. The familiar buzz that comes with performing fading with every passing second.

Her breath comes in short gasps until she's practically choking for air. She's drowning on dry land.

Mary leans against the wall, keeping herself from falling and closes her eyes tight.

The words to the last song are stuck in her throat, repeating on a never ending loop in her head.

Part of her wonders why Elsie Hughes - the writer - had it in the play in the first place.

 _Whatever will be, will be. Que Sera, Sera_.

The words are there again.

And then someone's tapping her on the shoulder and she spins around.

She wants to go home. She doesn't want to be here anymore - not in this suffocating dressing room with lyrics running through her head that won't go away.

She loves acting - it's her job - but this play, this play has nearly killed her.

Three weeks from start to finish was far too much to start with but it's the script that's doing all the damage.

It's about secrets and scandal, reminding her at every turn about the secrets that would destroy her with in second. The truth that gets her every time - she'll never be any better than this because if anyone knew about the Turkish man who died in her bed, her career would be over before it had begun.

But that song, that song is the one her mother sang to her as a child. Before she died, before Pamuk. When she was a little girl, innocent, against the rest of the world.

She shouldn't have agreed to do it. But she did - it's got great reviews and she's been tipped for bigger and better things, but still.

She wishes she stayed at home.

Yet, too, she wishes she still had the buzz she felt as she stood on stage.

Mary doesn't recognise the woman standing in front of her, but tears are starting to burn in her eyes so she can't really see much of anything.

"Miss Crawley," the blur says. "If you'd like to come with me, I have a director who's very keen to see you audition,"

So she's goes, she sings - the song that's stuck in her head comes spilling out for some stupid, stupid reason - and she doesn't look at the man sitting at the front row of the empty theatre.

But she knows who he is.

It's Matthew Crawley.

He's the biggest name on the West End - his new play is up in lights and his leading lady is world famous. For some reason he's sitting in a tiny theatre in Bradford-on-Avon.

He claps, his applause loud in the silence of the room.

He's holding something but Mary's eyes are trained on the piano, down in the band pit, so when he jumps up and comes towards her she doesn't notice until he's hoisting himself up onto the stage.

He sits on the edge, his eyes intent on her.

"Why are you here?" she asks, her voice quiet but it's like she's shouting in the silence.

The pianist - some guy called William - has disappeared in to the wings so it's just her and the world famous playwright.

"I want to offer you a part."

...

He whisks her away to London - to the West End - and they start rehearsing two weeks after the Bradford-on-Avon play closes.

This time it's not three weeks until curtain up - it's three months.

Three months and then she's going to be the lead in a West End play.

She can't believe it.

Rose McClare is her fellow lead and she takes Mary out to dinner a week into rehearsals.

They talk of the play, of the other actors - their male counterparts - and they laugh.

Mary can't remember the last time she laughed.

...

Matthew tells her she's the best.

The best he's seen in years.

She repays the compliment, telling him the plays the best on she's ever read.

He laughs.

She laughs.

She's happy.

...

He wants her to sing, asks her when she's the only one left in the studio.

He learns then that she can play the piano.

The beginning notes of Que Sera, Sera echo in the quiet.

 _When I was just a little girl_.

She's crying, silent tears falling down her cheeks.

 _I asked my mother, what will I be._

He's standing by the piano in a heartbeat, his eyes -so blue and full of worry - looking down at her.

She stumbles her way through the next line - _will I be pretty?_ \- and takes a shaky breath before singing - _will I be rich?_

She closes her eyes, the depth of emotion in his eyes too much for her.

 _Here's what she said to me._

Her finger's trace over the keys - the notes her mother taught her years ago flowing out without conscious thought.

 _Que Sera, Sera._

Her voice is breaking, falling and faltering over the words she knows by heart. Talking about her heart - that may be breaking too.

 _Whatever will be, will be._

She takes a sharp breath and shakes her head slightly. This, being here in London, has been the best time of her life. She's not going to ruin it by weeping over her mother and loosing the one great opportunity that she might ever have.

 _The futures not ours to see._

However much she tries, though, that line always reminds her that her mother isn't here - that the future was robbed from her. Her fingers trace the keys again but a hand - his hand - falls on hers and she stills.

Mary's eyes stay on the piano as his thumb circles the back of her hand. She's stopped crying, but the tears still stain her cheeks. Matthew reaches up and brushes them away, his hand staying there.

He kisses her.

Then the stage door opens and the pull apart.

It's his wife.

...

Mary's knows Lavinia - her reputation, her acting stature, who she is.

Lavinia and Matthew - the dream team; one acts, one writes.

Lavinia Swire was the world famous leading lady that came before her.

All of this is appears in her head when the door opens.

Her eyes stay on the piano and his hands fall to his side. Matthew turns to face the door and Mary slips away before he can say anything.

Because she can't breathe. Not really. Not anymore.

...

The play opens to great acclaim.

They say she is wonderful, they say she is one of the best.

They say he is genius, they say he is one of the best.

He comes to see her on the final night, giving her a single rose and kissing her cheek.

They stand for a moment, on the edge of something - a moment where everything could change.

His breath is hot on her cheek and her perfume is invading his thoughts.

Then the door opens and Rose's voice floods the room.

Nothing changes.

...

They both become famous, both become world renown.

They don't work together again, but at the Olivier's ten years after they last saw each other she goes into her dressing room and finds a single rose.

He hums the tune to Que Sera, Sera as he accepts his award.

...

Mary goes back to Bradford-on-Avon, back to that little theatre where it all started. Elsie Hughes has a new play - wants her to be the leading lady.

She says yes because she's always missed her home.

She falls off the acting radar - she's award winning but it's not enough to stop her being forgotten.

The maddeningly short rehearsal window reminds her of a time long gone.

Anna laughs and she sings and she's so very happy.

Everything is good in her life.

...

His marriage ends on a Thursday. He's eating cereal, his spoon half way to his mouth when his wife announces she wants a divorce.

His mother comes into the room and they carry on like nothing happened.

It's finalised a few months later and the papers - the glossy magazines - are full of details of affairs and scandal.

But none of its true.

He just gave up fighting because it was a battle he could never win.

He spends the next few weeks trying to track _her_ down - memories of late night rehearsals and laugher filling his mind's eye.

Mary.

He wants to find her.

...

He goes to see her act, watches her up on stage but he leaves before she sees her.

Mary finds a single rose in her dressing room.

She smiles.

She hasn't forgotten him.

...

Her fingers are ghosting over the keys her voice loud in the quiet. Her eyes are closed and she's the only one in the small theatre.

It's the only song she can still remember how to play - pity it's the only one that can make her cry.

He opens the door - he had a feeling he'd find her here, back where it all started.

The notes of Que Sera, Sera echoing in the silence.

* * *

 ** _LA - 1985_**

It's dark when they meet, the sound of gunshots still ringing in their ears.

She's sitting on the curb, waiting for someone from OIS to come and talk to her and he's standing by the Crown Vic talking quietly to his TO.

Four cops, three perps and fifteen shots. He thinks it sound like the start of a bad joke and she thinks it's how her nightmares will begin for a long time.

Carson is dead.

At the moment her thoughts start and end with that.

He's talking to Bates - the OIS rep - and every so often his eyes fall down to her.

She doesn't look up. She can see plenty from where she is - the refracting lights of the emergency vehicles. Anyway, she doesn't need the pity - she can't bear the idea of the looks in the other cops eyes. The look that screams - _oh,_ _the_ _poor_ _little_ _girl can't handle the big bad world, the rookie with a chip on her shoulder who can't take a little blood, the girl who should've stayed home instead of messing with the big boy's game._

He doesn't look at her like that but she doesn't notice because she won't look up.

It was a righteous shoot, they both know it - but there are four bodies lying on the alley floor and they're the only ones who saw the whole thing. His TO, Moseley , had been in the Crown Vic, waiting for a mistake or something - but when it did happen, when the glocks started going, it took him too long to get out the car so when he got to the scene all that was left were bodies.

And _him_. And _her_. Still alive.

Breathing, but only just.

...

It's started raining but it makes no difference. She's too numb and he's too soaked in other people blood for it to matter.

CSU have turned up and lights are illuminated the crime scene like it's a play, a scene set that can be restarted and replayed - where people can get there lines wrong and beg to start again, where the ending can be changed.

Except it's more like a tableaux - a freeze frame of death, a snapshot that cannot be changed - the fate of the character's set in stone, unmoving, unchanging.

The lights, harsh and bright against the dark of the alley, are blinding her but for a moment she takes the oblivion of not being able to see anything.

It's much better than the sight of Carson, lying on that cold stone. That sight that she can't unseen however much she tries.

...

Bates disappears somewhere into the black night, leaving him on his own for the first time in what feels like hours. In reality it's just under half an hour.

His eyes search the dark, sweeping past the bodies - lying side by side in the rain - and over to the sidewalk and the freeway.

He wishes he could just lose himself in the sounds of the cars rushing past but the overwheliming noise of the open crime scene is just so loud that he can't concentrate.

The smell of the blood on his shirt, coagulated and sticky, is filling his senses and he just wants everyone to stop - stop talking, moving, living.

He just wants it to stop.

He isn't supposed to be here - but when the call for backup had come, crackling across the radio, he and his TO had been the first to react.

He isn't supposed to be here.

...

The darkness is invading her eyes, dragging her down and disorientating all her senses. It feels like it's midnight - like she's lost in the small hours and the light won't find her for hours but her watch, illuminated by her maglite and the unforgiving CSU lights, tells her it's just after six pm.

Her eyelids keep fluttering closed, the black of unconsciousness of sleep threatening. But she blinks, pulling herself back to the present and away from the dangerous territory of the nightmares she's sure will plague her sleep when she finally lets the tiredness take her.

Someone close, someone behind her, is talking - calling - and it takes her far too long realise that it's her name they're speaking. She doesn't react - she doesn't want to talk, not now, for she know it will mean reliving the evening and the gun shots and blood. God, there was so much blood.

She puts her maglite on the sidewalk behind her and crosses her arms, trying to pull herself together - in a metaphorical sense, no point being unable to breathe properly if someone from OIS is trying to talk to her - but literally too, she's freezing, her rain saturated clothes cold from the cool wind that's blowing.

She's trying to pull her shirt closer, trying to keep warm even though she's sure it's futile. She doesn't have a jacket, no, it's crumpled into a ball resting on the back seat of her and Carson's Crown Vic, 5he car that's been his service vehicle for years and years and is practically part of who he is. Who he was.

God knows where it is now - the last she can remember it was parked on a backstreet miles away but she doesn't care.

She doesn't ever want to see that fucking car ever again.

...

The rain is falling harder now, the tail lights of the cars on the freeway blurring in the torrent. He watches with a practiced inanity, trying to rid his mind of the noise on repeat in his head. The _bang bang bang_ of the glocks firing - again and again and again.

It won't stop and it's driving him insane.

One of his arms is resting on the cool metal of his Crown Vic while the other hangs limply down by his side. He's still in a state of heightened anxiety, ready to draw his gun if needed. His heart has stopped hammering, his breathing returned to normal but he keeps seeing it - the muzzle flashes from the guns, the way Carson fell.

He killed someone - he _shot_ someone. What they tell you in the academy doesn't prepare you for what it really feels like to take someone's life, even if they have taken the life of a cop. He balls his free hand into a fist and turns, his eyes searching the crowd for the girl - the other cop who was with him.

He's not even sure he knows her name.

He finds her in the shadows, sitting on the curb, her head in her hands. He glances down at his shirt, seeing the blood seeping out with the rain, and then back up the woman.

He makes his way over slowly, walking though a labyrinth of cops. He sees the ME for a fraction of a second, Captain Merton too, but they're both lost in the sea of people before they even notice his presence.

...

Her head is in her hands and she's praying that she will just black out, that she's so exhausted that it will just all end and someone will take her home and wrap her up in a blanket.

Someone sits down next to her and she's ready to just tell them to fuck off when she sees it him.

Her fellow survivor.

He doesn't say anything and she bites her insult back, her eyes finding his. He leans in and for a moment she thinks he's going to kiss her but instead he puts his lips to her ear and whispers.

"Let's get out of here."

...

They walk to his Crown Vic and he undoes the buttons on his shirt, pulling it off and throwing it to the back seat. He's wearing a vest and, somehow, the blood hasn't seeped through to the white fabric though it's already soaked through from the ice rain.

She's standing by the passenger side door and he glances over at her when he pulls the door open. He slides into the seat and she does the same, thinking that the days already been so fucking messed up that this, whatever _this_ is - though it seems to her that she's about to disappear from an active crime scene with a random stranger - can't make it any worse than it already is.

They drive to his apartment in silence save for the sound of the of the freeway out the open window.

When they get there they stand in the rain outside his door as he fumbles with his keys. His trousers still have blood on the and his hands are numb from the cold.

She's cold too, but she's numb with the pain. She doesn't feel it, much.

She kisses him the moment he gets the door open because she needs to feel alive. She needs to just be.

He kisses back because he wants to feel something, anything, because he worried he won't survive this.

...

After they lie on his single bed.

Just _him_ and _her_. Alive.

Breathing, but only just.

...

She's still there in the morning which surprises him. He finds her in the bathroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror.

He knows what she's doing - she's seeing if she looks the same because after everything that's happened in the last twenty four hours she feels like something, anything, must be different.

They don't talk.

She leaves while he's in the shower - in no mood for long drawn out goodbyes even though she's sure it won't be like that with him.

She doesn't want to have that conversation where they both agree that it was a mistake because she's not sure it was.

And she's not ready for that.

She stands outside, breathing in the cool air, disbelieving that she's actually seeing the morning.

When he finds her gone, he sits at his desk and wonders if he's ever going to see her again.

...

He does, nearly a week later, at Charles Carson's funeral.

He's a pall bearer, wearing his uniform for the first time since that night, and he finds her in the crowd of mourners easily enough.

He wonders, for a moment, why she's not with him - carrying the coffin but his thoughts are interrupted by the start of the precession.

He's sure that his uniform still has blood on it - even if he can't see it - because there was so much that he can't believe that it's all gone.

He thinks, idly, as he walks - the coffin heavy on his shoulder - that he wouldn't be here if he hadn't picked up that radio call. Someone else would've responded and maybe Carson wouldn't be dead.

Or maybe she'd be dead too.

...

She finds him after the service, seeking him out when only the vicar is left.

They stand by the grave and she doesn't hide the tears falling down her face.

He doesn't ask but he pulls her close and for the first time since Carson died she feels like it might just be okay.

Someone's got her back.

He leans close, his breath tickling her ear.

"Let's get out of here."

...

They're doing the gun salute as they walk away. Officers standing in rows, guns held to the sky.

All for Carson.

The sun bright in a cloudless sky. She thinks of all the days that will never come for Carson.

But she has hope now. She has him.

It's cold when they leave, gunshots ringing in their ears.

* * *

 **London** \- **2013**

There's a woman standing in the corner.

You wouldn't notice her, no, not unless you were looking for her.

There's a man sitting at one of the tables, holding a glass.

He's laughing and talking and everyone notices him.

Somewhere, a door is open and the cold air is stealing into the room, unwanted.

The band play a little louder and the woman is glad for small mercies.

...

 **Fort Jackson, North Carolina - 2007**

...

"Tell me you'll stay," a man says, the light bleeding through the fractures in the curtains.

"I wish I could," a woman says, looking up from lacing up her boots.

He leans forward, resting on his forearms to get a better look at her in the half dark.

She continues to tie her laces in the silence. She looks down and you almost wouldn't notice the tears that start to fall down her cheeks.

"I want to save you," she whispers.

"You think running away from me will do that?"

"Yes."

...

 **Camp Bastion - Afghanistan, 2005**

...

She sits on the ground, a water bottle held firmly in her grasp. Sweat is pouring down her face and she struggles for a jagged deep breath.

He sits next to her, offering her a packet of some kind of food. She shakes her head and takes another gulp of her water. She's bleeding, scrapes and cuts that are nothing compared to what they've left behind out in the dust.

He has nasty scratch on his face, his skin rubbed raw but he doesn't feel it. He offers he the food again and this time she takes it.

"Thank you," she says.

"It's fine," he breathes and she almost doesn't hear it. _Almost._

...

 **London** \- **2013**

...

There's a woman standing in the corner.

You wouldn't notice her, no, not unless you were looking for her.

There's a man sitting at one of the tables downing his second glass of whiskey.

He's laughing and talking and everyone notices him.

Somewhere, a door is open and the cold air is stealing into the room, unwanted.

The band play a little louder and the man is glad because it means he doesn't have to think.

...

 **Fort Jackson, South Carolina - 2007**

...

She opens the door as the sun finds its place in the sky.

She thinks he's fallen back asleep but he's just pretending.

It's been a long time coming - he knows that. They've worked, fought, side by side for years now and she's put in a transfer. She's going home and when she comes back it won't be with him. He's pretending he's still asleep, persuaded himself that it will hurt less if he doesn't have to look at her.

She leans down, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"Goodbye," she whispers against his skin.

It's better like this, she thinks, it has to be. They're no good for each other, they've gone through too much together to live a life that won't be overwhelmed by nightmares and dreams of the battles - of the guns and the blood. It's better like this, when they're not destroying one another by being too alike - too damaged to be any good for each other.

His heart breaks as she walks out his door. It always does when she leaves. His eyes are closed but when the door comes to a close, loud in the morning solitude, he looks up to see if she's there.

She's not.

"Goodbye," he says to no one. It's better that she just though he was asleep.

...

 **Camp Bastion, Afghanistan - 2005**

...

She wakes in the middle of the night, dreams threatening to drag her down to hell and back. He's the only other person awake.

They sit, side by side, and watch the sun come up, the sky exploding every so often with gunfire and explosions.

She lays his head on his shoulder.

That's how it starts, sitting on a dusty track in the middle of a war zone watching the sun rise.

...

 **Fort Jackson, North Carolina - 2007**

...

Her bags are packed. They stand to attention at the door like the soldiers they both are.

"Are you going somewhere?" he asks. He knows the answer before the question is out of his mouth.

She's staring out the window at the sun, drifting slowly out of the sky. She's going to save him. It's not right, the way they are falling apart while desperately trying to cling together.

"You know, don't you?"

"That it's over?" he nods at his own words and she does the same. She turns away, pulling the curtains closed. She picks up her boots, moving to the sofa so she can put them on.

"Tell me you'll stay?" he asks.

"I wish I could."

And that's how it ends, standing in his living room with silence drowning them, watching the sun go down.

...

 **London - 2013**

...

There's a woman standing in the corner.

You wouldn't notice her, no, not unless you were looking for her.

There's a man sitting at one of the tables downing his second glass of whiskey.

He's laughing and talking and everyone notices him. Their eyes aren't on the little boy, running in from the bitter night.

Somewhere, a door is open and the cold air is stealing into the room, unwanted.

The band play a little louder and a little boy runs up to his mother and the woman catches the eye of the man and in that moment they both know. She didn't leave to save them, no, she left to save herself.

 ** _..._**

 ** _London - 2013_**

...

There's a woman in the corner.

A man sitting at one of the tables drinking his second glass of whiskey.

Their son runs in from the cold.

* * *

 **Ohio - 1976**

He's making a speech, that's when she first sees him. He's standing on a podium thirty feet away but his voice is crystal clear in the morning air. It's the middle of December, there's snow falling and a wind that's so cold it feels like it's biting at her bones. But she stays, most of the team have gone inside for coffee and doughnuts but it's her first day and she's not sure a disappearing act, however cold it may be, would go down well.

Sometimes, later – much, much later – she wonders what would have happened if she hadn't stayed, if she'd followed Bates and Anna into the warm, drunk scolding coffee, eaten doughnuts and gone home like a normal person. Later, too, she wonders if he'd have just found someone else. For some reason, she always decides that, no, there wouldn't have been another girl. Maybe that's stupid on her part but it's what she thinks, regardless.

Mary wraps her coat a little tighter as the crowd around the governor starts to dissipate. She turns a little, to talk to Daisy next to her, but the other girl is gone. Now she's annoyed - she's the only one of the team who actually stayed until the end. Anna has told her that they'll all get her to relay the information to them all, so when someone asks what they thought the best bits of the speech were they can lie and say 'why it was the moment he started to talk about X, Y or Z' even though they were sitting on their asses drinking coffee instead of actually watching.

She stands for a bit longer, silently cursing her colleagues, until a guy next to the governor is calling her over. They ask her name and tell her to make sure that the governor, for the five and a half minuets he will be in her company, doesn't do anything stupid or reckless. The others are going to get coffee but the governor doesn't want any so he has to be 'looked after' as he calls it once the other hotshots have left. They stand for a moment, but then he sits on the edge of the podium and looks up at her. "My name's Matthew, by the way. Not Governor or Mr Crawley as they'll try and make you believe." He has an outstretched hand proffered in her direction and she shakes it. "Hello Mary," he says.

"Hello Matthew," she says.

How was she to know that stupid, reckless thing she wasn't supposed to let him do was let him talk to her?

…

She's not sure how it happens, but it's later – once she's been internally promoted a few times. She's more important now, not just some baby sitter or coffee girl, she helps build strategy for the campaign and makes sure that Matthew Crawley is seen in the best light possible.

She gets to know his daughter, a five year old full of more enters than she thinks she's ever hand. Mary spends six months inadvertently getting to know the girl – Ella – and somehow becomes one of the few trusted to look after her if her childcare falls through. She meets his wife, too – the red head, Lavinia, is hard to miss. They're papering over cracks, the campaign team, to try and make it out that the marriage is not on the shaky ground it is on. O'Brien tells her, once, when she remarks upon it – that "it doesn't matter if they actually hate each other – you can't be president if everyone knows that."

She gets to know him, Matthew, too, - personally – not just the press released stuff that's set free to the media. They talk, some days – while on trips to Michigan and Wyoming and in between speeches in freezing parks. Mary gets to know the real man, not the one who has been put forward for this race to the Oval Office. The one who laughs at her jokes instead of standing next to a woman who he's supposed to love for the sake of publicity shots. The man who smiles for real, not just for the cameras.

...

They're on a trip to Ohio - Ella has the flu so Lavinia has stayed behind. For some reason, she finds Matthew in the bar. Later, he tells her he was thinking about his daughter - about how he was never there and her heart breaks a little. He's nursing a whiskey, which she should tell him off for but she can't be bothered. She just orders one for herself and sits next to him. When they start talking, she's surprised that conversation is so easy, they, it seems to her, can talk about everything and anything.

Then, as the clock nears closer to midnight, they decided to return to their rooms. They walk up, side by side, trying to make sure they're being quiet. It wouldn't do to catch a prospective president, a little drunk stumbling back to her hotel room. Because that's where they go – not alone to their respective rooms, no. When she finally gets the door open they stand for a moment on the thick pile carpet. She thinks he's going through the options – if he does this, who will it hurt, the dreams he may crush. He weights them up and then he kisses her.

Later, when she can here the angry shouting and people are demanding why, she'll tell them she was drunk – even though she wasn't. Not enough for it to work as an excuse, but they don't know that. They don't ever know.

...

It's an affair. They have an affair.

It's the only way to put it.

He tells her he loves her after five months. She doesn't believe him, then - but later, much later and far to late - she realises he was telling the truth. She realises when she's drinking whiskey in a bar in Ohio years later. He meant it.

...

Six months after his declaration he's sworn in as president of the United States Of America. She finds him the next day, sitting in the chair in the Oval office - his office. She stands in front of him, her eyes cast down the ground and tells him she loves him too.

She means it.

They pretend she doesn't.

..

They're in a hotel in London, four months later, and she's standing at the window. Mary's looking out at the hundred million little lights, wondering how much longer this can last. She's not that naive girl who stood out in the cold anymore. She knows this isn't going to last. They won't go off into the sunset together.

They will go down one day, no warning, just a match thrown on to gasoline as they burn. They will fall to pieces as the lies they've told are exposed. She's told so many lies, she thinks, standing by that window. Mary wishes it hadn't happened the way it had - some nights she lies in bed and dreams of a world where she and Matthew met before he was married or wanted to become president. Before any of that, maybe then, maybe they could've been happy.

..

His wife finds out seven hundred and eighty-nine days after that first night. They're sitting round a table in the residence, drinking wine, when Lavinia slams her glass down on the table. Moseley, Matthew's chief of staff, stares up at her - a question almost falling out of his mouth. But he doesn't, he doesn't speak. He doesn't get the chance.

Lavinia looks at her, right at her and she knows that the other woman has thrown the match.

The flames are coming for her. "How long?" Lavinia asks, her voice shaking with barely disguised anger. Anthony Strallan, Matthew's VP, goes to speak but Rose McClare, his chief of staff, hushes him to a whisper. The First Lady is angry, they all want to know why.

"How long?" she asks again, turning to her husband. "Have you been sleeping with another woman?" He stands then and attempts to usher the others out.

"Oh no, _darling,_ I want them here. I want them to watch." But Mary can't do this and she walks out, and she can hear it behind her, Lavinia's voice loud and clear.

"You've been screwing my husband, the least you can do is sit here and take what you deserve." But Mary's gone and she feels so selfish, leaving Matthew in there all alone to fight this war. She knows, already though, that the battle's done - the war over before it's really begun. She knows she won't win, she won't get the guy and get out with her reputation or even really her life, intact. She knows this, walking away from the residence, the war is over. Lavinia wins.

….

Mary leaves the White House six days later. Before she goes she finds out that there's going to be no public divorce – not that she thought he'd leave his wife for her – and that everyone that was at that fateful dinner have been sworn to secrecy.

Years later, she talks with Rose McClare at a party for someone they both used to know and the other woman asks her what she thought she was doing – sleeping with the married president like she had. What had she wanted, what did she think would happen? Mary doesn't answer and drinks another shot – it wouldn't do to tell a near stranger that it was for love.

The papers don't report the story – nothing goes out about the argument that occurred that fateful night. No one knows.

She gets away – she gets out.

Mary gets a second chance. She knows, deep down, that she doesn't deserve it.

…

She doesn't see him for years – not in person, no.

But he's all over the news – his face, his voice – everywhere she looks. She gets a second chance but she can never be forgiven.

She sees Lavinia again, once, a few years after the dinner in the residence that changed her life so much.

They stand side by side in a cold field three years after they last saw each other. Neither woman says anything but the redhead takes a step closer and slaps her. She deserves it, Mary knows.

Then they pretend that nothing happened and watch as the president gives a speech.

His wife tells her, her voice struggling against some unknown grief, that her husband calls out for her sometimes as he sleeps - calls out 'Mary'. It is then Mary realises she destroyed far more lives than she first thought. She destroyed so many things. Something broken for every lie she told, she thinks, until the whole world is cracked into pieces.

And eyes for an eye until the whole world is blind.

Lavinia tells her she's pregnant, her voice still full of pain, before she walks away. Mary knows, too, that the child is already broken and they haven't even lived yet. So many broken things, she thinks, as she leaves, too many.

…..

She meets the child when he's twenty three years old. George, that's what he's called.

He's standing in front of her, holding a glass of wine looking so much like his father that it takes her breath away.

Ella, thirty three, with a little girl of her own, is there too, next to her brother. They are a family, Mary thinks, and something she could never be a part of.

She shakes George's hand smiles as he speaks. "What's your name?" He asks, his voice almost pitch for pitch his father's.

"Mary," she replies, her voice steady from years of practice.

"How did you know my father then?" the boy questions.

"I worked with him, once, a long time ago." She says. "He was a good man." George thanks her and she turns back to the room.

Ella looks at her and Mary thinks the other girl knows. She knows who Mary is – knows how she tried to destroy her family. Mary looks at her for a moment then walks away.

Matthew is dead.

She walks away.

She never gets away.

* * *

 ** _Downton Abbey, 1921_**

Matthew is dead.

She walks away.

She never gets away.


End file.
